


Left & Leaving

by Holly (spaciousbear)



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-05 04:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17318405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaciousbear/pseuds/Holly
Summary: A series of drabbles for Banana Fish Angst Week.





	1. Forget

**Author's Note:**

> A series of drabbles mostly focused on grief. The stories don't follow any particular order and jump around a bit between characters and points in the timeline.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eiji tries not to forget.

The first thing Eiji forgot was the sound of Ash’s voice.

He knew what it sounded like, could perfectly describe Ash's laugh and the way his tone shifted from authority to affection depending on who was within earshot. He could talk about the way it hitched in the back of his throat when he was attempting to hold back his irritation. But Eiji couldn’t _hear_ it anymore.

He could remember Ash’s distinctive turns of phrase, so foreign to him when they first met. But now he recalled the words twisted in the clumsy, uncertain narration of his own thoughts.

There was one memory, one Eiji could sense so clearly, of the only time he’d ever heard Ash sing. Ash was in the shower, had called out for Eiji to fetch some more shampoo. It was one of their good days, and Ash must have been just relaxed enough that a murmur turned into a hum, and soon his voice, low and gravelly, echoed off the bathroom walls as Eiji returned to hand off the item he’d retrieved. The memory was otherwise intact, but it now played through Eiji’s mind like a crackling reel of silent film.

Eventually, he forgot the way Ash smelled. Recognition settled in on him slowly - it was something he never realized he had until he’d lost it.

Hints of it haunted him. A wave of peppermint from a new tube of toothpaste would leave him lost in a melancholy for hours. Nights when Sing returned to the apartment, singed with the scents of smoke and gunpowder, and Eiji could only shut himself behind his door until it passed.

It was a late night when Eiji was walking home and he caught the faint scent of stale cigarettes mixed with copper and something indeterminable. Eiji followed it, unknowingly, tried to find its source to no avail. He had chased the ghost of a hunch five blocks out of his normal route before he realized that the sensation that had lured him - it reminded him of Ash. And he didn’t know why.

The last thing Eiji forgot, the thing he tried to hold onto the longest, was the taste and feel of Ash’s mouth against his when they kissed. He would lie awake at night and trace the outline of his lips with his fingers, try to recreate the tension and pressure to incite that memory.

Just once, a drink or two past the point of inhibition, he allowed Sing to press against him in a kiss in the vain hope that the experience might conjure something, anything to bring it back. It wasn’t the same. Sing kissed so much differently than Ash, soft and cautious like Eiji might break. It wasn’t rough and needy and hungry like the one that clawed at the remains of his memory. It was a new experience, one that ran parallel to the other, never quite managing to intersect. It couldn’t replace the one of Ash, but it couldn’t imitate it either.

Eiji was grateful, then, to have taken so many photographs.

They ensured that Eiji could never forget the crinkle near his eyes when he smiled - genuinely smiled, it was how Eiji could always tell. It meant he could never forget the precise shade of green that looked back at him after they parted from a kiss, even if he couldn’t remember its warmth against his skin, the gentle moment just as they parted where their lips lingered, neither willing to back away just yet. As long as he had his sight, he would hold on to this last piece of him. Maybe then, Ash could live even beyond him in some small way, and Eiji could give him some semblance of forever.

He didn’t lose Ash in one instant. It was a constant process, and Ash was leaving him every day, piece by piece. 

Time was unforgiving. It came to claim everything, eventually. But not without a fight.


	2. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While training Ash, Blanca muses on the ghosts he contends with.

_Sometimes it looks like he has a halo, don’t you think? The irony of that. But only when the sun is out like this, and it catches the gold in his hair. Reminds you of an open wheat field, or a sandy beach. Like our wedding ring, Natasha, though that’s been long discarded - traded in once again for cold gunmetal._

One after one the shots fired off, and in suit, each shot was followed by the dinging of a bullet hitting its mark.

_The cold steely metal is everything else. It’s gun in his hand, the cold, dead look behind his eyes, and the sureness with which he hits his target. Gold is of course too soft, too malleable to be of use. Better to choose the steel, in the end._

Blanca’s eyes scanned over the pages of his book and quietly kept count. Six shots in a row, and then silence. Footsteps that were soft, almost silent and Ash was standing in front of him, he knew without even glancing up, looking rather pleased with himself.

“You missed that last one,” Blanca remarked.

“So you are paying attention. Thought you were asleep on the job, teacher.” What was undoubtedly a smirk had crept into Ash’s voice.

“Huh. Seems to me you missed that one on purpose. Showing mercy, are we?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be instructing me?” Ash leaned over him, eyes fixated. Only then did Blanca look up from the book in his hands, pressed the pages closed gently between his fingers. He met Ash’s intense gaze with a smile.

“I’m being paid to make sure you _can_ hit your targets. Whether or not you choose to do so is up to you.”

He dropped his attention back to his book without a further word and Ash stalked back to his position. It wasn’t good for the boy to seek validation so openly like that; he’d never receive it, he’d only grow restless for more. Still, once Ash refocused on his practice, Blanca spared a glance upward. When he set his mind to it, he was actually quite remarkable, and he was only getting stronger every day.

When Blanca had first met with Dino Golzine, he had been warned that Ash Lynx was more monster than boy. Looking at him now, Blanca saw that he was not enough of either to comfortably fit into the role. But each day it was shifting, and he was more like an angry, restless spirit occupying a body. Like a child’s ghost trapped within a killing machine. And Blanca’s job was to stifle the ghost, quell its hungry wants until only the machine remained.

 _He reminds me of you, Tasha. Strong-willed but fragile. That look in his eyes when he's not afraid to speak his mind. Even the way he carries himself. Sometimes I wonder if ours would have been like him._ Blanca mused to himself as though the specter of his wife was seated next to him. She wasn’t, but he could imagine the sly sideways glance she’d give him, a warm gentle hand settling over his, the words she’d say next.

_Wishful thinking, Seryozhenka. But then you always used to have a soft spot for children. You know better, my love._

_Of course. Not with the way things turned out in the end._

It was almost possible to imagine them watching Ash together, as a normal boy with as normal a life as they could have hoped to give him. But Blanca never allowed himself to entertain such thoughts for long, never allowed himself to entertain Natasha’s ghostly murmurs in his ear. Children had never been a discussion, not with lives like theirs. Perhaps if things had been different. But Blanca didn’t indulge in these thoughts either.

Ghosts weren’t just echoes or impressions of the past. They were also potential and possibilities, made of wisps of gold and ether, whispers of roads not taken. And in Ash’s face, he saw the ghost of everything the boy would never be, of all the things he himself could never be.

Sergei might have been able to raise a son. Blanca was only suited to cultivate a monster, a ghost, a revenant. It would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note - Seryozhenka and Tasha are used as affectionate diminutives of the names Sergei and Natalia/Natasha.


	3. Photographs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max takes a keepsake back with him from Cape Cod.

It had been Max’s idea to come here to begin with, not Ash. But now that they were in Cape Cod, a deepening melancholy settled over him, a palpable sense of regret. Griffin had talked about his hometown often, back when they’d met, with the kind of fondness that only homesickness can create.

Seeing the worn down old house, having met his father, Max couldn’t see much to be homesick for. But, of course, he understood that missing home hadn’t been the problem at all; Griffin had missed Ash.

The others were busy turning over the contents of the room, searching for whatever information they could gauge on Banana Fish. Ash dumped a pile of letters and photos onto the bed, paying no heed to where they scattered. Griffin stared back at him from each one, face more gentle and forgiving than Max perhaps deserved. Rifling through Griffin’s things felt like a violation, something he had no right to do. Especially because of…

The adrenaline of their predicament and a dull ache of guilt kept Max from thinking about it, from grieving him properly. Max had felt anger, pain, regret, had stewed in those feelings for months in prison, all while Griffin was still alive. Now he was dead, dropped into a public grave with no one to claim him. Between his father’s indifference, Ash’s rage and vengeance - Max wondered if anyone had bothered crying for him.

When they found what they were looking for and the others had dispersed, Max lingered in the room, near the photos. There were a few from their time in the army, but he looked away from those - lingering too long would only draw up memories of the gunfire and panic in those last moments. Something else caught his eye instead. A much older photo, with a teenaged Griffin standing next to a young blond boy - of course it was Ash, though it was hard to imagine the Ash he’d traveled here with having anything in common with him. He was glancing up at the older boy in admiration, and Griffin was kneeling beside him, a firm, affectionate hand on Ash’s shoulder. They both looked happy.

It was impulsive, the picture wasn’t his to take. But the old man wouldn’t miss the photo if it was gone, couldn’t appreciate it, didn’t deserve it. Max pressed it against his palm, smoothed out the curling edges, and slipped it into his pocket.

************

When Max got the call about Ash, he was holed up in a small hotel downtown for one last night before flying back to LA. It came on the verge between late night and early morning, light only beginning to peek in through the cracks in the city’s skyline. It was dark when he opened his eyes, and before he could even register the sound of the phone ringing, part of him already knew. He couldn’t remember what was said, precisely. It didn’t matter.

He paced the floor, restless. He rounded it a dozen times or more before he paused. His flight was in just a few hours and his things were packed away neatly. He went through the mechanical motion of unzipping the suitcase and pulled a few items out of its inner pocket. There wasn’t much there, only the few things he cared enough about to keep safe. A print copy of the newspaper expose, for his own posterity. A birthday card Michael gave him ages ago that Max liked to keep close by. The photo of Ash and Griffin rested at the bottom of the pile.

Griffin, however unknowingly, had given him a final gift with Ash, absolution in a way to be there the way that he couldn’t anymore. And Ash, for his part, had indulged him in playing pretend at being his dad, just for a while. He’d even indulged him when it wasn’t pretend anymore, when Max wanted to protect him despite Ash’s damn stubborn pride. The two of them had been so different from each other, their places in his life never truly overlapping. But he loved them both. Max hadn’t been able to save him, in the end, just like he couldn’t save Griffin. But he hoped Ash at least knew that much.

The photo was heavy in his hand. Finally, he cried.

*************

Moving back in with Jessica was a process, but they were both working on learning compromise. She’d erased the traces of their life together while he was gone, and he understood why. But slowly, she was letting him back in. First it was one drawer for his clothes in the bedroom and little else. But it was growing.

There was a shelf of family photographs, mostly consisting of Michael’s school photos moving in a progression of age, but there were also photos of Jessica’s parents and siblings, a few candids of her and Michael together. Jessica had even put their old wedding photo back up, joked that they can display the new one right next to it. Max knew it was a joke but intended to take her up on that offer anyway.

It was like looking at a collage of things he loved in his life, and then lost. His marriage, his family, his career. But somehow, miraculously, he managed to piece his life back together. He managed to get them back.

Most of them, anyway.

Nestled among the rest of his family, he placed the photo of Ash and Griffin; a collection of his loved ones wouldn’t feel complete without it. Whatever new memories may be added, they would remain, lost to him - a brother in arms and the son that he couldn’t quite protect.


	4. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eiji has scars. Not all of them are on the surface.
> 
> (Content warning for implied/inferred past suicide attempt. )

Sing had plenty of scars, and they ranged in age and severity. Everything from scrapes during playful childhood squabbles to deep, penetrating knife wounds decorated his body. Some he was less proud of than others, but they were all a part of him, and he wasn’t afraid for them to be seen.

Eiji had scars too. Less, maybe, on his skin, but the ones you could see were significant.

One at the top of his shoulder, where a bullet had grazed him. Then there was, of course, the gunshot in his abdomen - a scar faded now into a pink sunburst, like a flower blooming out of violence. Sing didn’t often catch a glimpse of it, but Eiji was not shy when he caught him looking. He had taken that bullet for Ash, after all. There was a certain pride in that.

The other scar was different. It was older, for one, faded enough to be almost imperceptible. It was a scar from before New York, that much Sing knew. Maybe it was why Eiji didn’t talk about before New York much, why he was prone to fits of quiet introspection whenever the topic was broached. It ran along the inside of his wrist, jutting across the otherwise smooth skin. This one Sing saw almost daily, when Eiji reached into the cupboard for the dinner plates or raised his camera up to take a photo, when he drew his arms back to pull up his hair as it grew increasingly longer. This one Eiji _was_ shy about. He would falter, cross his arms across his chest or pull on his sleeve whenever he realized Sing was looking.

Sing sometimes wondered if Ash had ever noticed it - but of course he had, nothing ever escaped Ash’s notice, particularly with regard with Eiji. He wondered, instead, if Ash had ever asked about it.

Sing never asked about it. But he did look at it often, kept careful track that no others joined it.

Eiji had scars, and most of them weren’t on his skin.

They were the way he came home trembling the first time he’d accidentally taken a path that led him past the public library. The nights when Eiji simply wouldn’t come out of his bedroom, wouldn’t speak or eat, no matter how much Sing tried to coax him. The way his gaze lingered, hazy, over wisps of blond hair from a stranger passing him by on the street.

He’d seen what became of those who held that kind of pain inside; they drank it down themselves to avoid feeling anything, or they let it bleed out of them until they finally died with a smile on their face.

Ash’s last thoughts of Eiji were hopeful and optimistic, a life free of any more scars. Sometimes Sing hated him for that. Ash had never had to listen, helpless, through the wall as Eiji cried at night. He’d never had to learn how to interpret when it was a cry that required company or solitude, the heaviness of what making the wrong choice would mean. He’d never even seen the scar from the bullet Eiji took for him, let alone pressed his lips to it in quiet comfort.

Sing would press his mouth to each scar, if he could, if Eiji would let him. He’d kiss his wrist to pull him out of the past. Kiss where the bullet passed through, as though that would remove the poisonous grief festering inside of him. He’d suck out the poison from his lips, act as a sieve for everything he tried to expel with his cries. He’d keep doing it, even if the well was bottomless, even if it meant tasting nothing but bitterness and bile for the rest of his life.

He would, if Eiji asked him to. But he did what he could, he stayed, he let Eiji curl up next to him on nights when crying alone was too much. Sing looked at his scars, then his damp cheeks, and hoped he'd be able to find the peace that Ash dreamed for him. 


	5. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a quiet moment, Eiji tends to Ash's wounds.

Ash kept a list - a quiet, mental list of all the things Eiji had lost because of him. His school career. Contact with his family, maybe even their trust. Months of Eiji’s freedom, stowed away in their little enclave to guarantee his safekeeping. Some of these things he’d be able to get back, however broken or damaged they may be. Others were lost for good.

It was more than just a way of punishing himself; it was practical. The path he was on was paved with small choices, and most of them led to an end Ash refused to imagine. When it reached a point where Ash needed to make a difficult decision, one he knew he wouldn’t want to make, it would ensure he made the right one. One that pushed Eiji out of his sphere and back to safety.

For now, Eiji’s attention was focused on his task. Brow lined with concentration, he tended to the deep laceration on Ash’s side, just under his ribcage, with deft if not totally graceful hands. He was attentive and patient, even when Ash squirmed in discomfort, even when he hissed in disapproval as Eiji doused the area with rubbing alcohol.

“Shit!” he winced as Eiji pulled his hands back, gripping a bundle of bandages soaked-through with blood.

“Do not complain,” Eiji warned evenly. “I am almost done.”

He worked again, quiet now. Ash dealt with the stinging of his cut with visible, affronted silence. Eiji was careful to keep things neat and clean around the apartment, and he was even more careful about cleaning up when Ash was injured. Still, there was only so much he could do and there was a tinge of red staining his hands as he stood to discard the old bandaging. Ash could hear the faint sound of water running as Eiji washed up before he returned, fresh bandages in hand.

“You know…” Eiji began, his voice serene. He always seemed at peace like this, when he felt useful. “The sight of blood used to make me sick.”

Ash raised an eyebrow at the admission.

“You? The guy who’s cleaning up a gaping hole in my side? You’re practically a battlefield surgeon.” Ash shot an amused smirk, and Eiji scowled briefly at the gentle teasing before he continued.

“I remember once, when I was young, my sister lost her first tooth. She was biting into a rice cake when it happened. It was not a lot of blood, but the rice soaked it up and the whole thing began to turn red.”

“Sounds pleasant.”

“I blacked out,” Eiji admitted, a sheepish flush spreading across his cheeks. “I woke up an hour later and my sister has never let me forget.” Ash laughed softly as Eiji taped down the last of the fresh bandages.

“You’re such a baby,” Ash said, savoring the last lingering bit of painful contact as Eiji pressed against the bandaging to secure it in place.

“I guess I probably was,” Eiji said, quiet. His voice changed then, infused with a sad confidence as his eyes lifted up to meet Ash’s gaze. “Not anymore, though. Since coming to the US... Blood does not bother me now.”

Ash blinked and his eyes wandered over to Eiji’s hands. They were clean now but Ash could almost still see the stain of red he’d left on them moments ago. Of course. Seeing enough violence could make anyone numb to it, even someone as sensitive as Eiji.

Nothing that touched Ash could avoid being marked by it. An aversion to blood was the privilege of a peaceful life.

“No,” Ash affirmed, his mouth dry and his voice thick with regret. “Not anymore.”

Silently, he added another item to his list.


	6. Violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immediately post-canon, Sing must come to terms with the consequences of violence.

Sing had seen a lot of dead bodies in his life. It was a hazard of the role he played - violent means met violent ends, after all.

He’d witnessed his own guys killed right in front of him, seen the aftermath of a handful of bloody altercations between rival gangs. He watched Arthur’s throat being slashed and the soaring arc his body made as it crashed to the ground. The carnage at Golzine’s mansion still glowed as a memory seared into the back of his mind. He’d killed men himself, looked them in the eyes as the life left them. That he could handle. It was something he’d learned to live with. But this was different.

Nothing had prepared him for the sight of a familiar body, still and sterilized, on a cold silver table.

“It can’t be,” Sing could hear himself speaking, knew his mouth was moving, but everything was like drifting through a haze of uncertainty. “It’s wrong. Ash… Ash Lynx can’t die.”

The air in the morgue was freezing and goosebumps flecked across his skin with distracting urgency. Ash was in front of him, but Sing’s eyes darted back and forth in an attempt to focus on anything else.

He’d seen Ash shrug off injuries worse than this. He’d seen him bite down through the pain and keep fighting, even when anyone else would have succumbed. Because Ash Lynx, too strong and too stubborn for his own good, _couldn’t_ die. The officer in attendance tried to give him a sad smile and Sing looked down at the floor.

Death in the heat of battle was messy, but at least it preserved something of the person’s vitality. The only thing to suggest that Ash had ever been alive at all was the vague smile that somehow found its way to his face. When Sing looked away, he could almost think he had imagined it.

Sing had seen a lot, but this was too much even for him. Around him, the room became unfocused. Sing felt dizzy and unbalanced and he reached out to steady himself. His skin made contact with something cold and Sing pulled back instinctively without looking to see what he had touched.

“That’s him.” Sing said quickly. He left his words behind him and had already taken a tentative step back, not bothering to wait for an answer. He had given them what they needed and he was out the door before they could ask him for anything more.

 

 

The trek back home was long, and Sing took his time navigating the familiar streets that now felt irrevocably changed. Thoughts swirled around him like a mist; they enveloped him. The ensuing chaos that would come to downtown in the wake of Ash’s death - surely a power vacuum that large couldn’t go unchallenged. His fragile alliance with Ash’s gang was all but impossible to salvage now. He’d need to explain what happened, about Lao, to his own guys. Those were problems for the next days, weeks, months. The immediate, more terrifying one loomed in the back of his mind.

Eiji.

Sing was careful to avoid notice as he crept inside his small quarters, stretched himself out onto the bed. He stayed like that for several silent minutes. Eventually, when he could muster the energy, he took out his phone and stared at it. He kept few contacts in there; usually if he had something to say, he preferred to say it in person. Eiji was one of the few he had.

He had acquired it less than a day ago, in fact. When Sing had gone to visit Eiji in the hospital, Eiji had grabbed his phone enthusiastically and, without pretense, programmed his own number into it.

“You’ll have to stay in contact with us, Sing,” he’d said, beaming.

With _us_ , he’d said. Sing’s gut twisted again. Calling Eiji felt wrong somehow. He wanted to let him enjoy the illusion just for a while longer, just for now. But the truth was, Sing was too much of a coward to tell Eiji what had happened and for once he was grateful to have the distance that a phone call would allow him. The truth was, Ash Lynx couldn’t be dead. But, of course, he was. Eiji was going to have to learn that sooner or later.

Sing knew that when people looked at him they saw a boss, a rival, an enemy - defined by the life of violence he led. With Ash, that experience was amplified - people saw a demon, an angel, a monster. Eiji was different. His letter had shown that well enough, even now as it weighed heavily in Sing’s pocket. He’d seen Ash as something more than those things, even if they were part of him. That letter, that last hopeless act of devotion, showed that he didn’t think that every story that began in violence needed to end in violence, that he wanted to write a new one for them.

In comparison, it was such a small, simple act Eiji had shown to Sing by forging that connection. But it meant that maybe Eiji thought the same of him. That he wasn’t just a boss, defined by violence. Eiji saw him as a friend, and as a friend Sing owed him at least this much. More, probably.

Sing’s eyes lingered over the name for a long time. Finally he pressed down on the button and the ring sounded the end of a beautiful dream thousands of miles away.


	7. Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash, as others remember him.

When Shorter thought of Ash, he remembered the cold closed off walls of a cell getting colder with his icy, empty stare. A boy who needed no friends or allies, an island unto himself, who shrugged off any extension of either sentiment as though it was a weakness. Somehow, between their first chilled greeting and the moment Shorter drew the first laugh out of him, that had changed. 

He remembered the slow thaw as their paths crossed over the expansive maze of city streets time and time again. Eventually, it stopped being by chance. There were close calls and shots of adrenaline chasing after them as long nights on the street drifted into exhausted mornings at Chang Dai, cleaning spots of blood from their clothes. 

He remembered an impossible choice. Eiji’s unconscious body was as heavy in his arms as the broken pieces of the trust he’d acquired were on his conscience. He remembered the cold stony eyes of an angel watching him as he slipped away and turned to the one person he trusted to do right by him. 

And then nothing.

**********

When Sing thought of Ash, he remembered the stories. Shorter told a lot of them over the years and Sing was sure he had exaggerated at least a little. Shorter said that Ash Lynx would either be the most loyal ally or the most terrifying opponent you could hope to have - there was no in-between. 

Sing remembered, somehow, managing to stumble his way into the “in-between.”

He remembered the crisp white page of a letter in his hands. Then the letter, back in his hands, no longer white, stained with something more than blood and tears. 

Sing remembered the things Eiji said while he wept himself to sleep, half delirious, things even Eiji didn’t remember saying. Sing kept them to himself, like he kept the letter for so many years. He wasn’t Ash, couldn’t be Ash, but he couldn’t quite be like any of the other friends Eiji had made during his time in New York - there was too much there, the history and the guilt that lingered between them like red thread unwilling to break. 

He had stumbled into the “in-between.”

**********

When Eiji thought of Ash, he remembered a dark smoky bar full of noises his flustered mind barely registered as words. He had been told many things about Ash before coming here, but as he looked on at the boy who stood leaning carelessly against the bar, surrounded by people, his first thought was of how lonely he seemed. This was perhaps his last thought before chaos struck. 

Eiji remembered the fluttering excitement in his chest and the heat of Ash’s mouth against his. Even when he discovered the capsule and understood its purpose, the fluttering never stopped. After that, Eiji could barely remember a point where his heart didn’t race like a hummingbird’s when Ash was nearby. Excitement, danger, and attraction all mingled into a single unit of feeling he understood uniquely as _Ash_. It kept him stable, it let him fly one last time. It broke him. 

He remembered a long, lonely plane ride back to Japan, followed by a longer, lonelier flight back to New York. 

Eiji remembered. For all the details he eventually forgot, every memory that became hazy, for the sadness that faded into melancholy over time. His heart remained buoyant and full of love, reaching upward as though his soul was always one moment away from rejoining itself. 

Eiji remembered forever. 


End file.
